Jefferson Adams is a freelance writer living in San Francisco. His poems, essays and photographs have appeared in Antioch Review, Blue Mesa Review, CALIBAN, Hayden's Ferry Review, Huffington Post, the Mississippi Review, and Slate among others.

He is a member of both the National Writers Union, the International Federation of Journalists, and covers San Francisco Health News for Examiner.com.

By Jefferson Adams

Published on 05/31/2011

Practically nobody doesn't love ice cream, and home made ice cream garners even more love, still. However, making ice cream from scratch can be a time-consuming, labor-intensive exercise. This easy ice cream in a bag delivers the goods!

Practically nobody doesn't love ice cream, and home made ice cream garners even more love, still. However, making ice cream from scratch can be a time-consuming, labor-intensive exercise.

One solution to that problem lies in this simple recipe and method for making about four cups ( 8 servings) of delicious vanilla ice cream at home in a bag. Kids will love making and eating their own refreshing ice cream.

For each person making ice-cream, you will need two pint-size resealable plastic freezer bags, one gallon-size resealable plastic freezer bag, and gloves or a towel to keep your fingers from freezing.

If you have more than one kid, you can divide the existing recipe between them, so they can both make ice cream. For more ice cream, scale the batch accordingly. Add fruit or other ingredients as desired.

Pour about 1/2 cup of mixture into a pint-size plastic bag and seal carefully, making sure to squeeze out any air before sealing. Place each sealed bag into a second pint-size bag, again squeeze out any air and seal.

Fill each gallon-size plastic bag about halfway with ice and 1/2 cup coarse salt. Place one sealed small bag into the large bag, squeeze out most of the air, and seal the large bag.

To keep your fingers from freezing, wear gloves, or wrap a towel around the bag.

Shake and massage the bag for about 5 minutes or until the mixture thickens into ice cream.

If you still don't have ice cream after 10 minutes of shaking, then add more salt and ice to the outer bag, and shake until ice cream forms.

Be sure to keep the salt out of your ice cream by removing the outer pint-size bag before opening the inner bag.